My first refractor on an AZ GTi - and I love it.

[Gfamily]

I've been very fortunate in that I've been given the loan of an Altair Astro Lightwave 72, and I've found it works really well with my AZ GTi

With such a wide field of view, alignment is straightforward even without a finderscope, and the scope is so easily within the payload of the mount that targets are reliably within the eyepiece, so if I can't see something I'll know it's because the sky is rubbish rather than it being the GOTO being rubbish. 

At one point early in my astronomy purchases, I bought a second hand 6.7mm eyepiece, but I've never had a scope that was useable with it, but with the Lightwave it was giving really good views of Saturn and Mars this evening (albeit with a narrow field of view). 

I've been really impressed too by the AZ GTi  -  setup and alignment are so straightforward, and the app's 'best tonight' function suggests targets that might not have come to mind.

I particularly like that there's been an interface to it built into the Stellarium Plus app - so select a target in the planisphere app, and the scope will go to it. 

Up 'til now, my 'goto' scope has been my Mak 127, but I can really see the attraction of a much smaller ED refractor. 

[Sunshine]

Sounds like you're going to have loads of fun with that ideal grab and go setup, its always nice when things just work well together like that mount and scope.

[sputniksteve]

I've very recently picked up a 127 on the old AZ GOTO mount. My longer term plan is to get a refractor to compliment it. I might well upgrade to the AZ-GTi at some point too, but I'm wondering if a small frac would work well on the older mount that I've got. 

 

 

[Gfamily]

1 hour ago, sputniksteve said:

I've very recently picked up a 127 on the old AZ GOTO mount. My longer term plan is to get a refractor to compliment it. I might well upgrade to the AZ-GTi at some point too, but I'm wondering if a small frac would work well on the older mount that I've got. 

There shouldn't be a reason why not - if it has the same mounting block. 

[Gfamily]

1 hour ago, Sunshine said:

Sounds like you're going to have loads of fun with that ideal grab and go setup, its always nice when things just work well together like that mount and scope.

Having returned from Astrofarm in France (where I first ran the combo) to our edge-urban location in UK, we can see that it is limited  by urban skies.  But it'll travel with us to darker skies about an hour away. 

 

Edited September 20, 2020 by Gfamily